This electronic newsletter is designed to inform friends of Hampshire College about news stories involving Hampshire, and about the work and accomplishments of members of the college community. Media releases and announcements are regularly posted at www.hampshire.edu (click on "News").A NEW ACADEMIC YEAR OPENS

More than two-thirds of the 450 independent thinkers arriving on campus August 30 as new students were actively involved in community service during their high school years. The entering class of fall 2007 is indeed a creative group: half of them participated in music as an extracurricular activity in high school, a third in the visual arts, and a third in drama. We warmly welcome these students, one of the college's most selective classes, into the Hampshire community.

Classes begin September 5, and convocation is scheduled for September 6 at 3:30 p.m. on the Harold F. Johnson Library Lawn. Academic Calendar

FAMILY ORIENTATION: As our newest students go through orientation to college life, their parents are also learning more about Hampshire College. This year, for the first time, we scheduled a family orientation, with 385 parents of new students signing up for two days of social events, workshops, and panels planned just for them. We extend a special thank you to the generous parents of current and former students who helped plan these events, sharing their time as volunteers and their insights into what it means to be a Hampshire parent.

ALUMNI HOUSE: When new alumni director Killara Burn joined Hampshire earlier this summer, she immediately immersed herself in planning Family, Alumni & Friends Weekend, and in working to strengthen alumni services and the college’s communications with alums. For the first time, Hampshire has an Alumni House: a farmhouse on Bay Road has been renovated to provide office space for the alumni relations staff and an official point of contact for alums when returning to campus or seeking information. A brunch and open house at the Alumni House has been planned for Sunday, October 14, at 10:30 a.m. Family, Alumni & Friends Weekend also provides ample opportunity for alumni to meet Burn, who came to Hampshire from the University of Kent in England. Alumni are always welcome to drop by the Alumni House (call 413.559.6638 to ensure that the staff is available).

JOHN REID MEMORIAL: Professor John Reidpassionate scientist, irrepressible traveler, beloved mentor, loyal friend and colleaguewill be forever remembered at Hampshire. A sundial in the shape of the armillary sphere, used since early Greek times to show the relationship between the earth, sun, and heavens, is now under construction by student blacksmith Jacob Lefton (04F). Everyone is invited to take part in the dedication, which will be held on the Cole Science Center side lawn on Saturday, October 13, at 11 a.m.

BALDWIN CELEBRATION: Among college fundraising priorities is endowment for the James Baldwin Scholars Program. Since its inception in 1992, the Baldwin Program has served about 80 talented young men and women of color, and Hampshire would like to increase program enrollment to ten students each year. A number of events during Family, Alumni & Friends Weekend will celebrate the legacy of James Baldwin, who taught at Hampshire, and the success of the Baldwin Scholars Program. An art exhibit spotlighting the writer and social activist’s tenure at Hampshire from 1983 to 1986 will show in the college gallery, in conjunction with the annual faculty art show, October 1-24. The exhibit will include photographs and works by local artists, including photographs by Jerome Liebling and pen and ink, etchings, and relief portraits by the late Leonard Baskin. The August 19 Boston Globe ran a profile of one of our newest Baldwin Scholars, an article that conveys the mission and power of Hampshire’s Baldwin Program and its commitment to providing access to higher education.

CAMPUS NEWS

HAMPSHIRE FUND: Thank you to the many people who made Hampshire’s 2007 annual fund a great success. By the close of the fiscal year, $1.16 million had been pledged to support every aspect of the Hampshire experience.

FACULTY GRANT: Professor of Botany Larry Winship is part of a team that received a Research Opportunity Award from the National Science Foundation. The grant enabled Winship to work on a project, “Oscillatory Pollen Tube Growth: Integration of Secretion, pH and Actin,” this summer with fellow researchers from the University of Massachusetts and Long Island University. The group received a new laser scanning microscope, which is now available to Hampshire faculty and students for use in fluorescent tagging and staining to explore living or fixed specimens.

KITCHEN ECOLOGY: A course on micro-organisms, taught by Assistant Professor of Microbiology Jason Tor, was featured in the August 10 Syllabus column of The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Syllabus column focuses on innovative ways to teach traditional subjects. Using both a kitchen and a laboratory, students enrolled in Tor’s Kitchen Ecology course last spring were able to research questions and design experiments in the inquiry-based, hands-on manner that often attracts first-year students at Hampshire into science concentrations.

ABOUT ALUMS

Evan Viera’s (02F)Sycamore Eve was chosen Best Animated Film at the Scene First Student Film Festival in Wilmington, N.C., in June. Learn More

Sean Bishop (01F) received a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, an annual award given by Poetry magazine to two MFA or doctoral students in poetry. Bishop is the first person not already enrolled in a graduate writing program ever to receive the award. But, that status will soon change, as he is using the fellowship to fund study at the University of Houston over the next three years.

Please, God, Don’t Let Me Write Like a Woman, a volume of poetry by Anushka Solomon (85F), photo at right, is being released October 5 by Finishing Line Press. One of the poems has been selected by Amnesty International to be read at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Learn More

Please Be Seated: A Video Installation by Nicole Cohen opens September 18 at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum commissioned the video-art creation by Nicole Cohen (88F) in order to bring new perspectives and contemporary strategies to its illustrious collection of French decorative arts. Cohen selected six eighteenth century chairs from the museum’s permanent collection and created a unique video for each. Learn More

Peter C. Evans (83F) has been tapped by GE Energy to serve as general manager of global strategy and planning. GE Energy is a $21 billion business unit, headquartered in Atlanta, of GE Infrastructure, which produces gas turbines, wind turbines, and an array of other energy systems designed to meet the needs of a carbon-constrained world.

FEEDBACK

If you experienced any difficulties accessing and opening this newsletter, please let us know. Also, if you are viewing this as a forwarded message and would like your e-mail address added to the list of subscribers, just send us that information. And, lastly, if you have suggestions for stories related to Hampshire that you think might be good for any of Hampshire College’s communications efforts, please let us know about those, too. Just send your feedback by e-mail to Elaine Thomas, director of communications, at ethomas@hampshire.edu.